Center for New Community

About Western States Center

Based in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain States, we work nationwide to strengthen inclusive democracy. For 30 years, our work has advanced social, racial, and economic justice by convening, developing, organizing, and supporting the communities most affected by inequities. We’ve played a catalytic role, working with community partners to build people-centered movements, develop new leaders, and shift culture – with our eyes on the prize of an inclusive democracy where people can live, love, and work free from fear.

There are four pillars of our work:

Building Movement

We strengthen the organizing capacity of often-marginalized communities, with a particular emphasis on gender justice, racial justice, and tribal sovereignty work.

Developing Leaders

We provide training, leadership development, and organizational capacity support to social movements and leaders committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Shifting Culture

We convene culture-makers to shift the narrative and use culture as a vehicle for base-and power-building in non-traditional social change spaces.

Defending Democracy

We assist communities and civil society to uphold the rule of law by effectively responding to social movements that exploit bigotry and intolerance.

Who's Behind the Plot Against DACA

Anti-immigrant organizations like FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA, and IRLI, all of which have ties to white nationalists, have long taken a hardline stance that the federal government should dramatically restrict immigration and make life as difficult as possible for undocumented immigrants already living here. Their harsh viewpoints make no exception for young undocumented individuals who have been living in the U.S. since childhood. Many of these individuals have been granted temporary status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and most know only the U.S. as home.

For years, anti-immigrant groups have advocated to strip DACA recipients of their work permits and make them more vulnerable to deportation. They are also at the center of the latest assaults on young immigrants.

***The same individuals and groups in and outside of the White House responsible for the “zero-tolerance” policy and family separation are behind these attacks on DACA recipients and immigrant youth.

Background on the Latest Assaults on DACA

The collusive anti-DACA litigation filed and led by Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas as well as a handful of other states against the United States will get its day in court on August 8th – a big day in anti-immigrant efforts to end DACA. The lawsuit filed by the state of Texas in the federal court in Brownsville, over which Judge Andrew Hanen presides, seeks to end the DACA program once and for all. This backdoor legal assault is a transparent attempt to circumvent two nationwide injunctions requiring DACA renewal applications to be processed as litigation proceeds through the 2nd and 9th Circuits. Previous and current legal attacks on the program have been spearheaded by Texas, FAIR’s legal arm Immigration Reform Law Institute, its chief lawyer Kris Kobach, and individuals within the Trump Administration like U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller. This litigation is not about the rule of law, or safety and security, but about enacting a wishlist crafted by groups like FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA, and IRLI designed to maintain a “European-American majority,” and shrink the U.S. population. Restrictionists in and outside of the White House have been coordinating this exact strategy for years. Their goal is to rescind DACA, then leverage legal protections for DACA recipients in exchange for drastic cuts to legal immigration.